Born in 1818, George Dickel founded a retail business in Nashville, Tennessee, in the 1850s. He went on to buy a controlling interest in the distillery in The Cascade Hollow distillery in 1884, an enterprise originally established by John F. Brown and F. E. Cunningham in 1877 (bottles claim 1870). He also purchased exclusive rights to bottle and sell the whisky.

Born in 1818, George Dickel founded a retail business in Nashville, Tennessee, in the 1850s. He went on to buy a controlling interest in the distillery in The Cascade Hollow distillery in 1884, an enterprise originally established by John F. Brown and F. E. Cunningham in 1877 (bottles claim 1870). He also purchased exclusive rights to bottle and sell the whisky.